The Chelmsford Hockey Association is a non-profit organization that relies on our member community to come together financially to pay the considerable expenses required to operate our program. It may come as no surprise to most, but the largest expenses for the program are practice ice and league dues, which are required to be prepaid prior to use or consumption. To that end, it is imperative for our organization’s financial health to collect player tuition in an expeditious manner. To assist with this, we have established and recommend families use, an installment approach that will automatically bill your credit card over the off-season to resolve the tuition bill for your player. Families that seek an alternative approach may pay their installments by check by mailing to our PO Box.

Effective for the 2018-19 season, the Chelmsford Hockey Association will require all tuition bills to be fully resolved for the 2018-19 season by no later than September 8, 2018.

Families with full-season players that fail to meet the September 8th deadline will be provided a grace period to resolve the tuition bill that expires on September 30, 2018. Failure to meet the September 30th deadline will result in your player being restricted from the ice and the program until the tuition bill is fully resolved. Further, upon ice restriction being implemented due to a delinquent account, your player’s roster spot on their current team will no longer be guaranteed in the event that a roster move was required to balance teams during the ice restriction.

•For fall-only teams, such as; Midgets & Girls U19, the grace period will not apply due to the condensed schedule and the lower overall tuition bill. All tuition bills for fall-only teams must be fully resolved by September 8, 2018.

October is an important month for the program as USA Hockey rosters are required to be finalized, impacting USAH Tournaments, League Play and State Playdowns for the entire season. If roster movement is required to re-balance teams, we will need to execute changes prior to October 15th, hence the need to have our financial and team/roster picture firmed up in advance.

Exceptions to this policy due to hardship or special circumstances may be considered by the Board of Directors on a case-by-case basis and requests must be made in writing to the Treasurer by no later than August 1, 2018 to be considered for the 2018-19 season. BoD approved exceptions will require a signed agreement and payment commitment timelines that will drive accountability for payments to the family, not the organization.

It’s important to note that there are financial assistance options and resources available to you if you need them. The Kelly Foundation & Aspen Tech offer grants to help with the significant cost of playing hockey. We encourage families to pursue those options proactively as needed and we will post forms and web links on the CHA website.

While we recognize that the large majority of our families engage in the off-season installment approach and do not/ never have had a delinquent account, there has become an increasing trend of families that allow outstanding balances to linger until the winter months or tryout season in March. In some limited cases, they are not resolved at all. In those circumstances, Chelmsford Hockey works with our Mass Hockey & USA Hockey partners to ensure that players do not play for other programs while neglecting their CHA balance by restricting their USAH Registrations. In more extreme cases, we will pursue unresolved tuition through the legal system.

On behalf of our member families and entire organization the Board of Directors has the duty and obligation to protect the financial health of the program now and into the future. Given the risks associated with finances and debt, the BoD felt it appropriate to update our policy and to provide more clarity around financial expectations.